iGame Night
by Mlle. Madeline
Summary: "Usually when Mom forgets to pay bills, I stay over with Carly and we have a game night. Only she isn't here, so that means I have to hang out with you." Seddie friendship, but there's a little somethin' somethin' if you squint a bit.


**A/N: So, iBeatTheHeat. What'd you guys think? Anyway, this spawned from my brain, for whatever reason, suddenly hitting me in the face with the Pictionary line. Mild Seddie. Mostly Seddie friendship, but there's a little somethin'-somethin' if you squint a wee bit.  
Disclaimer: No.**

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**iGame Night**

It's well past midnight when I'm shocked awake by light, loud music, and blonde curls. "Ahh! What?" I yell, sitting straight up, just as wide awake as I'd been sound asleep five seconds ago. "Music off!"

I don't know why I even bother being surprised it's you. Of course it's you. Who else would it be?

You're doubled over. I assume you're laughing at my reaction to your wakeup call, but the music is so loud I can't even hear myself think. Between gasps you reach over to my PearPod and shut it off. The room is doused in your laughter instead of whatever metal music had just been playing.

"Benson – your face – you scream like a girl – you almost fell out of bed – " you're choking out. I'm afraid you're going to throw up, you're laughing so hard.

"Sam," I say angrily, and my tone makes you stop and look up, "when my mom comes in, you'll – "

"Bluff," you scoff. "Your mom's working the night shift."

I look at you in disbelief. "How'd you know that?"

You grin deviously. "My mom's dating a doctor from the hospital this week. I pulled a favor, had him call Crazy in last minute." You pause. "Besides, the Mace, the number for the Poison Hotline, and a fourteen-step guide on what to do in case of an intruder is all on the counter. Not hard to figure out."

I groan, because you're right, of course. "I hate you," I say, yawning.

You roll your eyes. "Why are you asleep?" you ask, like it's an everyday question to ask once you've terrified a person out of slumber.

"I dunno, because it's the middle of the night?" I say sarcastically, and rub my eyes. Your arms are crossed, foot tapping impatiently.

You roll your eyes and come around to the other side of my bed, plopping down and pushing me sideways. "So? It's not like we have school tomorrow."

"Um," I say blankly, staring at you. "Except that we do. Today's Wednesday." I check the clock. "Or Thursday now."

You flap your hand, waving away my crazy logic. "Whatever, it's not like I'm going to school tomorrow."

"Not to be rude," I say, meaning to be rude, "But _why_ are you here?"

You shoot me a withering glance. "Mom forgot to pay the cable bill, Carls and Spencer are in Yuckima for the week, and I'm bored." You say this with all the petulance of an exasperated child.

"Oh, well, _that_ explains everything."

You let out the sigh of one long-suffering. "Usually when Mom forgets to pay bills, I stay over with Carly and we have a game night. Only she isn't _here_, so that means I have to hang out with _you_."

"Wow," I say with fake cheerfulness. "There is absolutely _nothing_ I would rather do than entertain you all night. Except maybe get my teeth pulled. Or have a colonoscopy. Or take tomorrow's chem exam."

You shoot icy daggers at me. "I can arrange all of that."

"Arranging for me to take a chemistry test isn't too hard," I grin, just to annoy you. "It's scheduled anyway."

You shove me off my bed. "Don't you have playing cards or something?"

"_Ow_," I complain, picking myself off the floor. "Sam, seriously. We have school tomorrow."

You let out a huff and hop off my bed. "Come _on_, Benson," you cajole, repeatedly poking me in the chest with both your pointer fingers. "Live a little. Stay up all night. Wear the same shirt tomorrow that you wore today. God, are you a teenager or an old man?"

"Yeah, I'm _so _crazy for wanting to sleep before school tomorrow," I roll my eyes, and you punch me.

As I'm rubbing my shoulder, you bound out of my room and head to the kitchen. "You got any food in this bidniz?"

I follow you with a sigh, resigning myself to the fact that you aren't leaving. "Depends on what you consider 'food,'" I say honestly, and lean against the counter. "We don't have any ham. Or beef jerky. Or meatballs. Or FatCakes."

Shaking your head and muttering under your breath about "uncivilized monsters," you turn back to the fridge and stare inside. "What the chizz is tofurkey?"

I wrinkle my nose. "You don't wanna know."

You pick up the container anyway, but when you sniff its contents you wrinkle your nose too and fling it back in the refrigerator. "Ew."

You grab the carton of milk, and upon finding nothing food-worthy in the fridge, you slam all the cabinets open and closed until you find an unopened box of whole-wheat, fat-free Saltines and content yourself with that.

Armed with your snack, you head to the living room. You're going to get crumbs all over the carpet, and my mom's gonna freak out, so I go to grab some glasses and a plate.

My hand is barely on the cabinet when you call, "Don't even bother, Fredenstein!"

"How do you even know what I'm doing?" I call back.

"Please. You're as predictable as your mom's neurotic. I'm not using a plate, and I'm drinking the milk from the carton, and you can deal with it!"

"Samm," I protest, not moving my hand from the cabinet. "You're gonna get crumbs all over the place."

"I'm gonna get crumbs all over your face if you don't give it up and come out here and play some Chutes and Ladders!" you retort.

"Sam, when my mom finds out that you – "

"Bluff!" you crow, cutting me off. "You're not gonna tell Crazy I was here. She'd be too busy freakin' out over you having a girrrrrl over in the middle of the night to care about anything else."

"You're not a girl," I snap back, because I'm feeling reckless or something. "You're a freak of nature."

Your growl is frighteningly animalistic. I should be terrified, but the fact is that you want to play Chutes and Ladders and something about that just isn't intimidating.

So I let it go, figuring that if I insist on a plate you'll make a point of spilling things. I walk into the living room, and all I see is your ham-shaped butt sticking out of the hall closet. "Sam, what are you doing?" I ask, unable to help being mildly amused.

"Dude, you've got normal board games?" Your face and torso emerge from the depths of the closet, your arms filled with boxes. "I was expecting weird chizz, like _Hygiene Hero _or _Vegetableland _or something."

You thrust the stack of games into my arms and dive back into the closet. "Even my mother can be semi-normal sometimes," I reply with a roll of my eyes. "Since when do you play board games, anyway?"

You throw a deck of cards onto the top of my pile. "Since that's what Carly entertains me with." You slam the door shut and flop down on the floor in front of the couch, ripping open the box of crackers. "C'mon, Fredda Kahlo, we're starting with Pictionary," you say around the Saltines you're shoving down your throat.

I can't believe you've awakened me in the middle of the night to play board games. But at least you aren't making me watch MMA fighting. So I set the stack of games on the floor and sit next to you, taking a swig of milk, prepared for a long night.

As I set up the game and we play, I can't help but sort of watch your face. It's funny how excited you look to play a stupid game, but your enthusiasm is infectious.

And we have a ridiculous amount of fun, even the way you and I play.

Pictionary quickly turns into Sam Draws Freddie Being Eaten By A _. ("A toaster, Sam? Really? How was I supposed to figure that out? Toasters don't have teeth." "They do when they're eating you, stupid.")

Twister becomes Freddie Tries to Turn Sam into a Contortionist Until She Sees He Isn't Using the Spinner Anymore. ("Dude!" "Oh, come on, that backbend was impressive." "I'm gonna bend your back backwards until you have to spider down the stairs like in _The Exorcist_!" "Sam! Ow! Ow! Twister is _not _a contact sport!")

Life gets ugly when you claim every space I land on says "Gets Eaten by Bears" and I have no choice but to kidnap your children. Then you rob me and make off with my car, so I put up a foreclosure on your purple Victorian mansion, and then you fire me from my job as a police officer and I cut your salary from $50,000 to $5 and we both end up bankrupt. ("Sam, you can't sue me. I'm retired." "I can do whatever I want. I'm a millionaire." "No, Sam, millionaire means you _have _a million dollars, not that you _owe _a million dollars.")

Scrabble just turns violent. ("Sam, 'xglmjkt' is not a word." "Is too." "Is _not_." "Is _too_." "Is _not_." " Fine, then 'icteritious' isn't a word either." "Yes it is, Sam. You can look it up. It means 'yellow,' like jaundiced." "Well, 'xglmjkt' is the gurgling sound a Fredinski Benson makes when he argues with a Sam Puckett." "Sam, it's just a game – xglmjjk!" "SEE?" "Owww, Sam! My throat!" "Four hundred and sixty points to me!" "No way – I didn't gurgle a T at the end of that. You spelled it wrong. – Ow! Ow! Ow! _No_, you still can't have those points!")

I'm reading the instructions and trying to remember how to play Parcheesi when I hear a loud sigh and a soft _thump_. I look up, and you've fallen asleep on the board. That's when I realize: the sun is peeking over the Seattle horizon, we've been playing board games for six hours, and I'm exhausted.

It doesn't take much effort to follow your lead. Like you, I'm already lying on my stomach, so I lay my head down onto the board and close my eyes.

.

I wake up to my mother yelling at me, sun streaming in my eyes, and a black checker glued to my forehead. You're gone, of course, and there's no good way to explain why I'm asleep on the living room floor with about a dozen board games strewn around me. Not to mention the empty milk carton and cracker crumbs.

The checker leaves a bright red splotch on my face, and I'm still rubbing at it as I stumble into school, mind groggy and feet like lead.

"Dude!" Gibby's eyes widen, and he points and stares at my forehead in that subtle way of his. "What did you do to your face?"

I shake my head and wave him away, and that's when I hear a giggle, and I clear my weary mind enough to register that you're leaning against your locker, looking bright-eyed and clean and awake and not like you've had maybe an hour of sleep. "Get to class, Fredutonium," you say, not even hiding your amusement at my barely-awake state. "Don't you have a chem test?" You punch me in the arm for good measure, which wakes me up.

I groan and you laugh, turning back to your locker.

"Hey," I say, leaning against the locker between yours and Carly's, catching your attention again.

You turn to me, flicking an eyebrow upwards.

"I hate you," I say, fighting a smirk.

The smile creeps across your face like the sun swept the horizon this morning. "Hate you too."

And Mr. Howard gives us both detention for being late to homeroom, and I zone out during my test ("Mr. Benson, let me give you a hint. 'Xglmjkium' is not one of the elements with only one electron in each of the three _p _orbitals while in the ground state, particularly because it doesn't exist."), and at lunch I fall asleep in my sandwich and you post pictures on the iCarly site.

But it was worth it.

For the record, though, next time I am going to _own _you at checkers.

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**A/N #2 (Or, Read Only if You Care About My Process): So I was lying in bed one night, trying to fall asleep (you know what's super fun? Working 7-3 six or seven days a week. Not. But hey, a broke college kid's gotta do what a broke college kid's gotta do [although I tell ya what, I'm not broke anymore. Sheesh, factory work's got some money in it.]), and all of a sudden I got this idea. So I had to write myself a freakishly long text message (or three) because I'd already turned off the laptop and I was, like I said, lying in bed. Anyway, originally it was Sam coming over for an MMA night, but I already kinda did that with _iFight Back_...I've actually worked more on this than I usually work on oneshots. Lotta tweaking and changing. So this is, like, iGameNight 4.0. I'm happy with it. Howboutchu? (:**


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